Come back to me

A recording of today's gospel and blog can be accessed here.

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Today’s gospel (Luke 11: 15-26) is a complex not to say confusing extract. Saint Luke does not identify those who were raising objections or criticisms about the exorcisms of Jesus. However, we can surmise that they were probably egged on by Jesus’ enemies. Yet, what comes next is hard to decipher. It seems to be, on the one hand, a kind of treatise in demonology that explains not only the inner logic of the kingdom of the devil, but also the power battles for souls that are waged by the fallen angels.

As always, we know that Jesus is teaching us here, leaving His lessons to be the food of slow reflection, rather than turning them into flash media campaigns that press everyone’s buttons without winning their hearts. One sign that there is more to it, is that Jesus verges in these exchanges almost on banter, reducing his critic’s arguments wittily to an absurdity. His argument about Satan's kingdom standing is a good debating point but, underneath it all, it is a poor argument, for we know that Satan's kingdom will not stand. Indeed, the fallen angels are in a very real sense fallen and divided; fallen from their friendship with God, fallen from their exalted status, fallen from the vocations. What can He mean, then, by arguing that kingdoms who are divided against themselves cannot stand?

One clue may lie in that apparently random remark that sits in the middle of this demonology: he who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters. Who is it who is not with Him or who does not gather with Him if not ourselves? Not that we are wholly in revolt, far from it, no more than the Sons of Thunder were in revolt; no more then brash Simon Peter was in revolt.

But, we are divided against ourselves. The further from God we are, the more scattered we are. We have our good intentions, but then we are all complicated. The pure light shines into us but refracts out of us in gaudy rainbow colours that fail to illuminate. We are the adopted children of God, and yet in our worse moments, as Shakespeare says,

Our natures do pursue,

Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,

A thirsty evil; and when we drink, we die.

This is not false abasement but a cause for humble joy for truth brings us insight. The demonology that Jesus sets out in this part of the gospel is of course about the fallen angels, but perhaps in another way, it is about ourselves. The devil in Latin is diabolus but this word comes from Greek and, according to some, it means to be thrown apart; in a sense, to be scattered. In truth, all our kingdoms are divided: the kingdom of Satan and the kingdoms of this world which are in fact ruled by the prince of this world, as we learn in the moment of the temptation of Christ. There is only one kingdom that is based on unity and it is the kingdom of God.

For God is one and sufficient unto Himself, yet He chose to share His goodness by creating the world and calling us into it. But, then the unity of God calls all things back to Himself, and by a special and extraordinary privilege, the call for the human race was to share in God's very happiness, in the inner life of love that belongs to the Holy Trinity. This is why we need forgiveness: for sin is brokenness, and a retreat from that original unity to which we were called. And this is also why, insofar as we do not gather with Christ, in all those parts of our inner life that do not strive towards unity with Him, we are scattering ourselves and our heritage to the four winds.

Mercy of mercies, however; over the din that is made by the forces that shatter our hearts, we hear those words related by the prophet Joel:

Even now, declares the Lord,

    return to me with all your heart,

    with fasting and weeping and mourning.